OTHER: My PX270 Experience...

T

The Irish TRex

Well-known member
So later today I'm going to receive the two PX270's that I ordered from Adorama. Seems B&H hasn't stocked them yet. Not sure what that's all about but I grabbed a couple to possibly replace my current cameras. It's LOOOOONG overdue. I've been rockin' 2 x HMC150's for Weddings the last 4 years. Fortunately, I've been able to squeeze all the life out of them and they've been awesome but I'm ready for more. I'm ready for a super slow zoom, I'm ready for an LCD that's actually clear, I'm ready for 10bit 4:2:2 and better dynamic range, I'm excited to get to keep flash banding at a minimum despite moving from CCD to CMOS with the camera's Flash Band Compensation, I'm excited for the 22x zoom, I'm excited for the improved low light capability, I'm excited for the real 1920x1080 instead of the fake 1080, I'm ready for 1080p60 instead of 720p60, I'm ready for better audio, I'm ready just to have a new camera. Like I said this is long overdue. Here in LA, in a swarm of DSLR-only shooters, I've worked up our company to mid-upper level pricing and still have managed to book 30-40 per year. This year is already by far the busiest. But small sensor cameras are so "not the norm" for higher end weddings that when photographers see us with the cameras they say "wow, I haven't seen those in a LONG time" or, "does that shoot HD?" They mean well. I know they do. So I laugh it off knowing even their best photo can never compare to a great video.

I'm shooting my first big "industry couple" in a few months and I told my wife, I am not showing up with 6 year old cameras! I'll be phasing in GH4's into our mix as well in a month or so and maybe one day make that our main camera (unless some AF200 comes) but for now, I've realized, with a bit of care and using basic camera math, you can squeeze out some decently cinematic stuff with decently shallow DOF that doesn't look like a small sensor video, even on a 1/3" sensor camera. Just open up & push in. I'm jumping right into it this weekend with the two new PX270's at a wedding. I'm pretty confident after handling it briefly at NAB and reading up on it online that it won't be too hard of a transition. Here goes nothing. I'll report back for fun later. I'm also bringing my HMC's along too just to kill time and run comparisons as I get later into the evening and have less to do. Should be interesting.

As for my conversation with the very nice "industry couple" ...it went something like this...We met last summer. She's a great looking actress and he's a director (not huge, but legit, decent budget, studio backed films) and after not saying much and letting me and the bride talk for most of the meeting, he suddenly asked:

Him: So what cameras do you use?
Me: (pause, oh god...be vague) Panasonic.
Him: Which ones?
Me: (not wanting to tell him since they are so old) Uh, HMC150's.
Him: Hmm. I don't know that one.
Me: Yeah, it came out a while back and really, I don't shoot with it the way others normally do but it's great for my particular style of shooting.
The Bride: Well, we love what you do so...
Him: (back on topic) How many lenses do you use?
Me: (damn, he won't let go...sensing that he's measuring me up): I actually can get through the day with just one lens.
Him: One lens?!
Me: Yep. (I then changed the subject)

I didn't tell him the "big secret" that it wasn't an interchangeable lens camera but instead a 6 year old small sensor camera. Anyway, they booked us and while I'm confident their video is gonna look great, I had to make sure I didn't show up with the same 6 year old camera. At least this way, all his techie director friends can see the camera I'm using and look it up and see it's actually a great camera. Toss in a GH4 and that'll keep the tech-savy crew impressed enough I figure. But first things first...this weekend. Thursday, unbox. Friday, practice. Saturday, hope it all works. I have a feeling it will. :)
 
The 150 is already 6 years old? Wow... I bought one of the original ones when it first came out. Been a great little workhorse. But yeah, the PX270 will be in the stable by years end.
 
Irish, what is an "industry couple"? Is this like a super bride and groom that go around and get married over and over just to make video & photos people crazy? :)

If those are the questions brides are asking these days then I am very glad I do not do weddings anymore!
 
Be interested in how it works in real world low light conditions found at some weddings.
 
Bassman2003 said:
Irish, what is an "industry couple"? Is this like a super bride and groom that go around and get married over and over just to make video & photos people crazy? :)

If those are the questions brides are asking these days then I am very glad I do not do weddings anymore!
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HA! Completely forgot that outside this little "LA Bubble" we live in, the term industry couple probably doesn't register as film industry. This couple was actually super nice about everything. Occasionally a couple will ask about the cameras we use but they're just asking for no reason and I could literally make up something say "I have the ALK-2000" and they'd be like "aw, cool." But this guy was different, for me anyway. But I have a feeling unless I said "I use a Alexa" or "I use a Red Epic", he wasn't gonna know what I was talking about. (thank god)

zeke said:
Be interested in how it works in real world low light conditions found at some weddings.
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Me too. Oh, how I wish this was a MFT sensor. But I think it will be a good one just reading that it's a stop faster than the 250 and seeing the low light shots at HDWarrior. Either way, at this point we're set up for whatever. Obviously we have on-camera LED's plus I now use two diffused lowel pro lights to back light the "formalities" at a Reception which has helped quite a bit. Still, I'm eager to put these camera next to each other and start at 0db and go up seeing how they compare in "real world low light conditions" like you said.
 
Congrats! Looking forward to hearing how the new px 270s work at the wedding. I too am using hmc 150s mainly due to global shutter but I'm looking at getting a 270.
I'm particularly curious how they compare in low light, flash banding, image stabilization, and dynamic range when outside with a setting sun throwing rays onto people. And heck, how hard it will be to match both cameras :)
 
firehawk said:
Congrats! Looking forward to hearing how the new px 270s work at the wedding. I too am using hmc 150s mainly due to global shutter but I'm looking at getting a 270.
I'm particularly curious how they compare in low light, flash banding, image stabilization, and dynamic range when outside with a setting sun throwing rays onto people. And heck, how hard it will be to match both cameras :)
Click to expand...

Well hopefully I'll see all those things on Saturday. Cameras came today. Excited. I probably won't be trying to match the HMC's to the 270's though. I'll have my HMC's there "just in case" and to run tests later in the evening when there's downtime but during the sunset/crazy time, I doubt i'll be able to run any tests. Either way, I should know a lot more by Sunday.
 
The viewfinder and LCD are worth the upgrade alone! I loved the HMC-150 for a lot of things but the visual feedback was SD resolution in an HD camera.
 
The LCD and EVF are SOOOO much better. But that goes for most cameras theses days. To my eyes, the scene files seem more "flat" than the punchy scene files on the HMC. I'm rolling with Cine-D for now and I'm sure the extra dynamic range will help. I've been playing with it on and off the last 24 hours when I can. I'm pretty comfortable with it already. Guess I'll have to be as I'm shooting a wedding in 12 hours with them.

At 0db it's about as bright as the HMC is at 6db. So at +6db it's as bright as the HMC is at +12, but the 270 is less noisy. Rough "living room" comparison, nothing scientific, but it's pretty easy to see right away the difference. I'm sure I'll know more tomorrow.
 
Thank you for keeping us updated, have you peeked into the advanced menu yet? There seems to be a lot of extra parameters to be tweeked in there. I wondered, the manual says it has the film rec and tv rec gammas off its bigger brothers.
Can you only access those in the advanced menus? Just wondered, hope it goes well for you on the big day and let us know how you get on :)

p.s. really looking forward to seeing some 1080 50/60p footage from longG 25 codec, should be good.
 
I took a big chance today. Going into a full wedding not only with not one but two new cameras, but also it was my 2nd camera op's first day on the job after only one day of training. How did it go? Good. Although there were several times where I thought "man, I wish I just had my old HMCs today". Not because its better, because it's not. But because I'm faster with my old HMC's. Obviously. But for as many times as I had that thought, there were 2 or 3 times that I had the opposite thought, "man, this camera is nice". My speed will come in time, I know. What I loved the most? The extra zoom. The high rez LCD. Those alone made the day/night worth it. Shooting the close-ups on the couple during their vows was killer. I couldn't get close and it didn't matter. I was able to push right up to the perfect framing with ease and the LCD was crystal clear allowing me to accurately adjust focus.

There were a few things that I noticed that I didn't like, but many of them may be just "different" from what I'm used to so they aren't bad by any means and I'm sure I'll get over them in time. Probably even at next weeks wedding...

1) The LCD, for as good as it was, was also a bit flat looking (compared to the EVF) and it was really reflective. It's like reflective glass, whereas the crappy old HMC that I was used to was more matte. This mattered only during the outdoor ceremony when I was in the sun. But the sun was in front of me, not behind me so it shouldn't have been a problem. Truthfully, it's not that big of a deal. I can definitely tweak the settings on it to better match the EVF which seemed less flat, but then I have to see which was actually more accurate since I was shooting in the CINE-D mode. However, other than that a few moments, it was crystal clear and a huge asset for focus and just a better viewing experience.

2) The XLR in the back. I'm sure most people don't care, but I have a little rig on my camera that sticks out to the side where I have a transmitter and receiver sending what I'm shooting to my other camera op and his back to me so we can monitor each other. Well, I couldn't use the XLR in the back cuz it got in the way and wouldn't allow me to slide my camera on my tripod. I'll have to find an L-shaped XLR cable or figure something else out. I don't think most others would have this trouble, but I do wish it was somewhere else.

3) I kept hitting the ND filter and not the AF/MF switch. Ugh. This is user error. I did it like 5 times though. We work fast and I'm always in manual focus but occasionally when I go on the move with a shot, I'll toss it into AF for a bit. I kept hitting the ND switch instead. Oh well. I'll get better at that.

4) I haven't yet figured out how to adjust the white balance incrementally. I've found the menu option to move it to variable, but I'm not quite sure (yet) if I was doing something wrong because when I'd switch to a different environment and switch to a different preset, that variable mode would go away even if I went back to that previous A/B custom white balance. Things moved too fast today for me to site down and really figure out if it's possible to always have it variable without having to dive into the menu labyrinth every time. Granted the regular way of setting white balance worked just fine. This is just me not yet knowing this camera well enough. I've only had it for 24 hours basically.

5) Batteries. Holy crap. These things suck the life out of batteries. Wow. The camera comes with 2 great batteries that last a while. But sadly they don't have the "time remaining" readout. That sucked. I really, really miss that. I can't say how long they all last because there was no down time tonight for me to sit and time how long they lasted. We were playing battery swap all day/night long. I smartly rented 4 extra batteries but those from the old HVX's seemed to go real quick. Its just more power hungry than what I'm used to but I'll adjust. One thing that really sucked is that when the battery is running out, it stops the shot before it's fully out. Like it would just start blinking red and it would stop recording eventhough the battery could roll for another minute or two. Granted, if that's there to preserve that recording, great. I'll get used to it. But twice it turned off the recording mid-shot. Oh well. I'll get better.

6) I have to get used to 16gb cards holding only 34 minutes of 1080p60 footage. Wow. I have 8 x 16gb cards and was playing the card swap game all night. Again, small price to pay for great 50Mbps footage at 10bit 4:2:2...just not used to it from my HMC 98 minutes per 16gb card that I was used to. I'll get used to it...or get bigger cards. I know any class 10 card can fly but because of the nature of what we do, I'll probably get more reliable 32 or 64gb microP2 cards in the near future.


I can't really say how it all looked. I mean I won't be editing this for several weeks, but the user experience was up and down. I trust in what we got and we got some great stuff for sure. The downs were mostly things I can and will get better at and faster at. I have to say that it was nice in low light. Having that extra stop was awesome right out of the gate. Then knowing I could go up to 12db of gain and it wouldn't be really any noisier than my HMC's were at 6db was really nice. We still kept it to 6db max for most of the night because we have good on-camera LED's and 2 Lowel Pro Lights to make things look awesome. But the night stuff was awesome. I also realized that flash banding compensation didn't seem to want to engage when I had my shutter at 1/120 (because we shoot at 60p all day (it's our style to slow lots down in post for the highlights). We turn the shutter off (1/60) for the night time stuff usually anyway so it was fine. But there were times when the photographer had his flash popping during the later part of the day and I couldn't engage FBC because my shutter was at 1/120. Small thing, but made me go "hmm, really?" Non-issue later in the night when it mattered because I turn my shutter off anyway. It's definitely a bit heavier but nothing crazy. I can't tell you the number of times I blindly went to open the LCD and it wasn't there only to realize "oh, yeah, I have a different camera and the LCD is up front. I did notice the EVF loupe is a bit looser than I would like. Wish it was a bit more rigid. I also noticed that when you have something on the front cold shoe, you can't really close the LCD. I'll get over that but it is kind of a bummer when I'm trying to close it to save battery. The OIS seemed steady enough. Nothing better than what I was used to. I did notice that I had to turn it off a lot more when I tripods. Granted, I know you should do that anyway. But when you're moving from handheld to sticks and back all night I forget sometimes. The OIS would "stick" a lot more and shift the frame a bit when it was on a tripod. I've seen that happen several times before with my HMC's but tonight it happened a lot more than what I was used to so I did turn OIS off more than normal. Probably time to get into the habit of doing it the "right way" anyway.

That's about it. Someone in previous post asked if you can access the film rec and tv rec gammas in the extended menu...the answer is yes. It's there along with a few others. A lot is there. Honestly, the simple menu (where you just push menu quickly and not for 3 seconds) is almost "too simple". Most of the stuff I was tweaking required me to go into the deeper menu. There's a lot of customizing that one can do. I'm always a big fan of how Panasonic cameras look right out of the box. I think I may have to tweak my LCD a bit to better enjoy the look out of the box, but the great thing about this camera is that with the deep menus, almost anything is possible.

Time to sleep. It's 2am here in LA and I've been staring at a screen now all day long. It's amazing that I'm not blind at this point.
 
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Thanks for the update Irish. I am sure you will dial in these cameras and they will become great tools for you surpassing the HMC-150s. How about using 25mbps for your recording instead of 50mbps? I think 25mbps is going to be the star, go-to codec for me. Barry alluded to the 25mbps longGOP being equal or even better than AVC-Intra100. Should be a lot easier on the recording times.

Batteries...That is strange that time remaning is not shown? That is going pretty far back in camera developent time. Hopfully if we yell a lot this can be upgraded via firmware.
 
Hi Bassman, I think Irish Trex was using longG 25, but at 1080 60p. When using that codec, 50/60p becomes 50mbps instead of 25 for other frame rates. I had to re-read the Panasonic AvcUltra notes to check.
 
Garion said:
Hi Bassman, I think Irish Trex was using longG 25, but at 1080 60p. When using that codec, 50/60p becomes 50mbps instead of 25 for other frame rates. I had to re-read the Panasonic AvcUltra notes to check.
Click to expand...

Yes, that's what I was doing. LongG25 at 50Mbps. I figure I'll just get bigger cards and bigger drives and deal with it. The No readout thing hopefully will get fixed via firmware but I won't hold my breath.
 
Cool. My bad. I thought the codec had the ability to go up to 50mbps when it needed it rather than staying at 50mbps all the time. Does it stay at 25mbps for 720p60?
 
Thanks. That is a great read. I often shoot things in 720p60, so I can keep the dream alive of great image quality at 25mbps with lower storage requirements.
 
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